Freddie Borg marks up his first victory for Henley

This week Henley first team travelled to Abingdon without their captain and missing a few other regulars too. However, despite all the the Jubilee festivities they managed a decent 3/2 (15/9) victory.

The match began as usual with Luke Power playing Joe Brooke at first string. With both players worse for wear, Power snuck a 3/2 win – his first ever against the young England International.

Next up was James Knight at fifth string, making his first team debut. Knight showed great heart against Gary Cross but that wasn’t enough to stop a 3/0 loss against a skillful opponent.

At second string Nyall Driscoll beat Steve Rogers 3/0 in a fairly one sided match.

At two matches to one up, this left it down to the Stanton brothers to bring in the match, with new recruit Elliott playing in his Henley debut. At third string, Stefan went through peaks and troughs against the characteristically inconsistent Tom Wellstead, whilst brother Elliott waged a war against Gavin Collins at fourth string. Whilst both matches ebbed back and forth, the younger stanton lost a tight fifth game and the match 3/2 to Collins, leaving Stanton senior in the deciding rubber. With Wellstead imploding Stanton took the match 3/1 and Henley were victorious.

The 2nds had no game.

Henley 3rds visited Hithercroft and were narrowly beaten by Hithercroft 3rds (they have dropped their 2nd team so this was a creditable result). At first string Roger Booker had an off night and lost to his old adversary Trevor “TC” Cox 3/0. Jill Campion also had a bad night losing to a rejuvenated Tony Wheeler 3/0. Both Hithercrofters play for Henley Vets. Tim Budden had a ding dong match with Graham Taylor before eventually succumbing 3/2. Kristoff Kunzmann and Paul Ireland each had very easy matches at 4th and 5th strings against Ron Pearce and Gordon Graham both winning 3/0. Henley 8 points Hithercroft 13 points.

Henley 4ths were playing at home to Banbury 2nds and achieved their first win of the summer campaign!

At 1st string Richard Griffiths was in danger of an early bath – losing the second game 9-0 to go two games down in his match with John Fleming. But he came back strongly to take the third game with his usual powerful drives and even threw in a few drop shots! He looked good to complete his come-back when a few loose rallies and a bit of fatigue saw the Banbury man take the fourth game and the match 3-1.

At 2nd string, James Gildersleve looked to be back to his best – moving really nicely and playing his trademark hard drives. But it was not enough to overcome a strong opponent, Stuart Madle, who eventually won 3-0. Madle took charge in the 3rd game, but until then Gildersleve was competing well and looked good enough to take at least a game.

At 3rd string the ever-improving Jonathan Betts had a fine 3-2 win with an exciting comeback performance. His opponent, Andrew Moody, led 2 games to 1 and held match points in the fourth, when Betts clawed his way back to 8-8. At this point, Moody rashly chose to ‘Set 1′ and Betts duly took the game to make it 2-2 before going on to win the decider. Betts’ stand-out shot was a boast played very close to the mid-court side wall, which caught his opponent out on several occasions.

At 4th string Matt Blagg, the come-back king, seemed to be having an unusually easy time for once – leading 2-0 and 8-0 against Chris Rose, when he seemed to lose all concentration and managed to let his opponent back to 8-8 with a succession of tinned drop-shots. At 9-9, service alternated several times before Blagg finally won the game and the match 3-0.

At 5th string, Freddie Borg had his first victory playing for the senior teams in defeating wily Roland Bratt 3-0. The Banbury man was not very mobile, but stayed in the match with intelligent shot selection for the first two games. But once the youthful Borg latched onto his opponent’s lack of movement, it was all over – and he took the third game 9-0. Well done Freddie!

Overall, a narrow victory to Henley 14 points to 8.

The latest Oxfordshire League Tables can be seen here.